This WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs
Resources is a frequently updated Internet directory of
over 2000 annotated links to high-quality English-language
sources of information and analysis in a wide range of
international affairs, international relations,
international studies, global studies, and global
education topics. These sites are carefully selected for
their long-term value, favoring those with cost-free,
authoritative information and analysis online. Each
website is described only in general terms because of the
typically rapid changes in details of its contents and
features.

GENERAL
RESOURCES FOR ALL COUNTRIES

Major Sources for World and Country
Data and Statistics

NOTE: Many resources
linked on other pages of this site provide comparative
country data and statistics in diverse topical areas
such as human rights, election results, press freedom,
population, and international trade. Some of those are
listed here, for major interest areas, but please also
search in a page of this site that includes the
specific topic of your interest.

Zanran is a specialized
search engine to find ''semi-structured" data online, "the
numerical data... presented as graphs and tables and
charts," such as "a graph in a PDF report, or a table in
an Excel spreadsheet, or a bar chart shown as an image in
an HTML page... [which are] difficult to find using
conventional search engines, which are focused primarily
on finding text rather than graphs, tables and bar
charts."

International Statistics-- From the
Library of Statistics Finland, "Key international
statistics and data sources have been gathered into this
portal. The selection includes free data sources of the
most important and reliable international organisations
and communities."

Internet Crossroads in Social Science
Data-- From the Data and Program Library Service,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, a site that "contains
over 950 annotated links to data-related resources on the
Internet."

Knoema
World Data Atlas-- Very useful online data and
statistical analysis application for key current and time
series statistics for every country, "bringing relevant
indicators [from many standard sources] into a common
space, visualizing figures, applying analytical functions,
creating a set of dashboards, and presenting the outcome."
Good maps, charts, and graphs.

LIS Cross-National Data Center--
"Home to the Luxembourg Income Study Database and the
Luxembourg Wealth Study Database. These databases contain
harmonised microdata from high- and middle-income
countries around the world."
Free for use, including the Working Papers series, but
requires registration.

OFFSTATS: Official Statistics on the Web--
Annotated links to sites offering "free and easily
accessible social, economic and general data from official
sources,"current data and time series, by country, IGO,
topic, or subject.

Organization for Economic Development
and Cooperation-- The
international organization of the industrialized,
market-economy countries, to exchange information and
harmonize policy to maximize economic growth within member
countries and assist non-member countries to develop more
rapidly. OECD data is posted online. The Publishing
section is a good place to start searching for
publications. OECD resources focusing on a particular
country (OECD member or not) can be found in the Countries
section. The very useful yearly
OECD
Factbook is "an essential tool providing a global
overview of world economic, social and environmental
trends." An interactive eXplorer feature allows Factbook
time-series data manipulation on a world map and a scatter
plot screen.

Statistics-- From RBA Information
Services, in the UK, a very extensive compilation of links
to statistics sources worldwide, for many countries and
topical areas.

UK Data Service-- UK's academic data
service for a "single point of
access to a wide range of secondary data including
large-scale government surveys, international macrodata,
business microdata, qualitative studies and census data."

World Bank Data-- The World Bank
Group's extensive data resources are organized and
available through this page, with pointers to social,
governance, financial, economic, and climate statistics,
data, and reports. The Countries
and Economies page presents time-series tables of
key indicators by country. Also see the data and analysis
available at the Countries page.

• Central Intelligence Agency of the United States publishes a World
Factbook reference annual, with data, flags,
and maps-- one of the most widely respected online sources
of country and world information, with a country
comparison and ranking feature.

• Charts Bin-- Using
standard and mainly
international data from authoritative sources, a
"web-based data visualization tool that will allow
everyone to quickly and easily create rich interactive
visualizations with their own data," and also presents
statistical data in easy-to-understand maps, charts, and
graphs.

• Country Statistics-- From UNICEF,
country data on measures of well-being, particularly for
children.

• Electoral Geography-- Posts maps and
analysis about spatial regularities and patterns of
election results around the world, or "mapped politics...
a socio-political analysis of voting trends in the world’s
192 countries."

• Freedom House-- Many online
studies ranking countries on measures of freedom, informative
backgrounders, and other publications are offered by this
nonprofit, nonpartisan U.S. organization dedicated to
promoting democracy around the world. Note especially their
extensive yearly online report Freedom in the World.

• GeoHive-- "Site with geopolitical
data, statistics on the human population, Earth and more.
The main kind of data you can find here is population
statistics of regions, countries, provinces and cities.
Next to that there are some statistics on economic factors
like wealth, infrastructure; statistics on natural
phenomena..."

• Human Development Report Office,
United Nations Development Programme-- The annual Human
Development Report is an excellent comprehensive
guide to global human development, with analyses of major
issues, updated Human Development Indicators that compare
the relative levels of human development of over 175
countries, and an agenda to help transform development
priorities. Much of the report is available online, and
links to regional and national HDI reports.

• Human Rights Watch-- Dedicated to
protecting the human rights of people around the world, by
investigating and exposing human rights violations and
holding abusers accountable. Many country reports online,
including their yearly World Report.

• Index
of Economic Freedom-- From the Heritage Foundation
and the Wall Street Journal, "a practical
reference guide to the world's economies. It includes
country-by-country analyses and the most up-to-date data
available on foreign investment codes, taxes, tariffs,
banking regulations, monetary policy, black markets, and
more."

• International Foundation for Election
Systems-- Private,
nonprofit U.S. organization supporting electoral and other
democratic institutions in emerging, evolving, and
experienced democracies--"one of the world's premier
democracy and governance assistance organizations."
Insightful electoral information and analysis. See the Election
Guide for election news and analysis worldwide.

• Inter-Parliamentary
Union-- Information on the IPU (the world
organization of parliaments of sovereign states), the
functioning of parliamentary democracy around the world,
women in parliaments, and links to parliamentary web
sites. The PARLINE Database on National Parliaments
gives information about all the functioning national
legislative bodies in the world.

• Live Currency Converter-- "Converts
any amount from one currency to another with more than 150
foreign currenies available. Exchange rates are updated
every hour."

• Nation
Master-- Great site for comparative statistics. "A
massive central data source and a handy way to graphically
compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of
data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, UN, and
OECD. Using the form above, you can generate maps and
graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease."

• Nations
Online-- Thorough compendium of wide-ranging
information and links on the world's countries, "a portal
of gateways to the countries, cultures and nations in the
world, a reference directory and a destination guide."

• Population
Reference Bureau-- Excellent for authoritative
data and analysis on world, regional, and national
population and demographics trends. Features a large
multimedia repository. Note their Annual
Report and their annual World Population Data
Sheet for "up-to-date demographic, health, and
environment data for all the countries and major regions
of the world." Search for data and analysis by topic,
region, or country. The handy DataFinder has comparable data on
well over 100 population, health, and environment
variables for over 200 countries, 29 world regions and
sub-regions, and the world as a whole and allows
user-created tables. The quarterly Population
Bulletins on selected topics are very useful.

•
Regional and Country Profiles--
From the world-class Electronic Development and
Environment Information System (Eldis), a wide variety
of detailed country-specific information and analysis.

• Superpages--
Helps you to search the "yellow and white pages
[telephone] directories from around the world."

• Timeanddate.com-- Know the current
time and date at locations around the world. The Personal
World Clock feature allows you to keep track of time in
locations of your own interest.

• TimeTicker-- Shows time zones around
the world, and current time and date by country.

• Transparency
International-- "The global civil society
organisation leading the fight against corruption... by
building momentum for the anti-corruption movement,
raising awareness and diminishing apathy and tolerance of
corruption, as well as devising and implementing practical
actions to address it." TI's many online corruption
surveys, indices, working papers, and reports analyze and
rank countries "in terms of the degree to which they are
perceived to be the homes of... public officials who abuse
their office for personal gain."

• Travelers'
Health-- From the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, including information on countries and
regions.

• United Nations Population Fund--
"World's largest international source of funding for
population and reproductive health programmes." This U.N.
site provides much information, news, and analysis on
world population issues, including the annual State
of World Population report, free online.

• Weather Forecasts and Climates--
Current global weather and forecasts are found at AccuWeather, CNN, and Intellicast Global. Weatherbase
gives climatological descriptions, historical weather
patterns, records, and averages around the world.

• World
Database of Happiness-- "An ongoing register of
scientific research on subjective appreciation of life. It
brings together findings that are scattered throughout
many studies and provides a basis for synthetic studies."
Includes data by country. From Erasmus University in
Rotterdam.

• World
Time Server-- Gives current local times in cities
and countries, including real time adjustments for
daylight savings time, and compares time differences among
places for a given future date. Includes maps.

• World
Values Survey-- Insightful results and analysis of a
major international academic team's investigation of
sociocultural and political attitudes and their changes,
through representative surveys of the basic values and
beliefs of publics in scores of societies, covering a high
percentage of the world's population. Principal findings,
charts, methodology, bibliography, some articles online.